Briefings and consultation responses

This report by Sharon Wright and Tina Haux presents the findings of a study of advice and employment services for benefit recipients, from the perspectives of service users and advisers.

The study included sixteen in-depth interviews with people receiving advice about benefits, tax credits and job seeking from different agencies. There was also a focus group to explore the perspectives of advisers. Claimants and advisers are quoted extensively in the report to illustrate the authors' expert analysis. The report ends with CPAG policy conclusions and recommendations, in the context of the latest government proposals for welfare reform.

CPAG is part of an consortium of leading organisations with expertise in the UK welfare system, who work to support clients and reduce poverty. We have come together to influence the Bill as it passes through Parliament. This briefing reflects core concerns common to the group. We hope that Report stage will provide an opportunity for key changes to the Bill, which we feel are needed if the Government is to fully achieve its stated aim of increasing simplicity and fairness in the benefit system, and ensuring that work is an effective route out of poverty in Britain.

The Ministry of Justice plans to "save" £22 million by removing welfare benefits matters from the scope of legal aid funding. CPAG opposes this move because advice and representation on welfare rights is a vital tool to help people living in poverty. Social security is a highly complex and fast changing area of law. Even if it is simplified by the Government’s welfare reform proposals, this is likely to take years to achieve. In the meantime, claimants will be deprived of vital advice at a time of major upheaval in the system - leading to increased poverty, debt, and homelessness.

The Government proposes that separating parents should make their own child support arrangements rather than use the statutory scheme, for which it will impose charges that will deter low-income parents from using it. Our response expresses CPAG's concern that the plans are more about saving money than helping separating parents – and risk increasing child poverty in lone parent families.

The Government's ‘informal’ six-week consultation reviewed the 1,294 statutory duties that central government currently places on local authorities. These range from some that sound relatively trivial, to others that are vital to the health and wellbeing of children. We are particularly concerned at the threat to duties set out in the Child Poverty Act 2010, to which all political parties signed up.

The social fund helps people on low incomes cope with emergency expenses. The Government proposes to effectively abolish this fund and allocate parts of it to local authorities to use how they think fit, in accordance with the 'localism' principle. CPAG is strongly against these proposals.

This response supplements CPAG's main response to the consultation (see below) but it focuses on the needs of families in migrant communities. It sets out the actions we believe necessary for the strategy to reflect the particular needs of a group of children who are particularly vulnerable to poverty.

In this response we argue strongly against the Government’s proposals to remove social security and other areas of social welfare law from the scope of legal aid. We believe that these reforms will have a negative impact on child poverty by reducing access to welfare rights and social welfare advice, and that this in its turn will have consequences elsewhere. We also believe that the costs of dealing with the consequences of cuts in legal aid are likely to outweigh any "savings" the Government believes it is making.